After months of attempting to transfer funds from the sale of our house from PNG to the USA, we finally were able to get the first batch of funds transferred into our US bank account. Since we're currently very content renters, we've decided to delay buying a house. We may wait four months, or we may wait four years. We have no idea, and we love the flexibility renting offers.
However, now … [Read more...]

In preparation for my post on my new favorite budgeting software, I was originally explaining why I no longer want a personal finance software that tracks my investments.
The explanation got longer and longer until I finally realized the material need its own post.
This post.
6 Reasons Not to Track Your Investments In Your Financial Software
There is no value in watching your … [Read more...]

The first few lines of a recent blog post at Sound Mind Investing said:
After falling roughly 18% in two weeks (and scaring many investors half to death), the stock market bottomed August 8th at just under 1120. Since then, it has bounced back and forth between 1120 (white line) and 1220 (red line)...
For between 3 - 4 years, I've been a subscriber of the Sound Mind Investing Newsletter. It is … [Read more...]

I get questions.
I get questions about the Bible and money, questions about debt, and questions about investing.
Did you know that the questions you ask don’t necessarily get you to the solution you need? If you ask the wrong question, you’ll get the wrong piece of advice.
We tend to think the most important investing questions are:
How much should I be saving for … [Read more...]

I haven’t looked at any stats recently, but last I checked, target funds are growing in popularity.
The reason is because they make people feel safer. They present a simple, little-knowledge-required way to do your investing.
Thus, they target folks who know little about investing, but want to be saving for retirement. Furthermore, they are ideal for people who don’t want to have anything … [Read more...]

If you were to jump into a Canadian lake in January, I bet you’d feel some sort of shock to your system.
If you’ve never done much investing, you’ll feel a similar shock when you start to sort through all the investing options.
In fact, beginning investors often use phrases like - overwhelmed, so many choices, and I don’t know what to do.
Don’t expect me to tell you what to do, but I do … [Read more...]

If you asked me for advice to start investing, I’d first have to tell you that I legally cannot give specific investing and accounting advice. Then I’d tell you that both index funds and mutual funds are better ways to invest than single stocks. Then you might ask me which is better: mutual funds or index funds*? Here’s what I’d say …
*For clarification in this post, I’ll be discussing … [Read more...]

Recently, I’ve had several email questions about saving in a Roth IRA vs. a Traditional IRA.
The questions came from people who had most of their retirement savings in a Traditional IRA and were wondering if they should (1) start saving in a Roth, or (2) roll over the money in a Traditional IRA.
In my replies to those questions, I’ve said that if most of your retirement saving is in a one … [Read more...]

Just because you have money in the stock market, that doesn't make you an investor as defined by Benjamin Graham. Graham made an important distinction between an investor and a speculator. In a prior post, we looked at the traits of an actual investor.
Basically, an investor looks for safety of principal and an adequate return. A speculator in everybody else.
Although speculating isn't … [Read more...]

When considering investing in stocks, there is a lot that we must learn. First we must determine whether we have the time/knowledge to choose our own investments or if we should take a more passive route (hiring a broker, passive index investing, choosing age-related mutual funds, etc). Then we must figure out our investing temperament and risk tolerance, decide on an length of time to stay … [Read more...]